Domestication of Trigona iridipennis Smith in a Newly Designed Hive

Abstract

Hive of Trigona iridipennis is evolved for its hiving, domestication and conservation, it was found successful and observed that honey and pollen storage cells were separately adjacent to brood nest. This hive consists of longitudinal two parts and named as Acharya Narendra Deva long cylindrical stingless bees hive. Size of the hive comprised of 29 cm length, 11 cm breadth, 12 cm height and 2 cm thickness with removable cover as longitudinal upper part of hive and provided the dark, closed and covered hollow space. Hive consists of comb nest with funnel shaped entrance made of resinous substance situated at entrance. Brood nest was approximately spherical and contained the queen and worker cells. Each cell jointed with fine wax column and maintained the bee space 1.5–2 mm. Storage cells (honey and pollen) were largest and look like a bunch of grape. Queen and worker cells observed separately and latter was smaller in size. Observation of the nest in long cylindrical hive such as inspection of colony, extraction of honey with syringe and multiplication was easier than others hive, due to its longitudinal two parts. It is separable in two parts without mutilation and least damage of comb nest. Its natural foraging on sunflower tempted us to evolve this hive for rearing and conservation of stingless bees, which can be applied for transference of pollen to produce hybrid seeds.